Williams v. Donovan

• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana
• Writing for the Court: J. SKELLY WRIGHT
• Citation: Williams v. Donovan, 198 F.Supp. 237 (E.D. La. 1961)
• Decision Date: 11 October 1961
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 11268.
• Parties: Mack H. WILLIAMS, Leonard Williams, Mrs. Laura Campbell, Miss Lila Williams, Bennette G. Williams, and Mrs. Maude B. Emery, in behalf of the Estate of Rosetta Williams, Plaintiffs, v. P. J. DONOVAN, Deputy Commissioner, United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Employees' Compensation, Seventh Compensation District, Defendant.

198 F. Supp. 237

Mack H. WILLIAMS, Leonard Williams, Mrs. Laura Campbell, Miss Lila Williams, Bennette G. Williams, and Mrs. Maude B. Emery, in behalf of the Estate of Rosetta Williams, Plaintiffs, v. P. J. DONOVAN, Deputy Commissioner, United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Employees' Compensation, Seventh Compensation District, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 11268.

United States District Court E. D. Louisiana, New Orleans Division.

October 11, 1961.

Benjamin E. Smith, New Orleans, La., for plaintiffs.

Gene S. Palmisano, Asst. U. S. Atty., New Orleans, La., for defendant.

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, District Judge.

Jeff Williams was killed on January 23, 1959, on a vessel in the Mississippi River at New Orleans, during the course of his employment as a longshoreman. Almost a year later, on January 12, 1960, invoking Section 9(d) of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C.A. § 909(d), his mother filed a claim for death benefits, alleging that she was his nearest surviving dependent. Dependency was challenged by the employer, but before the matter could be adjudicated, Mrs. Williams died on January 3, 1961. Her heirs, brothers and sisters of the longshoreman, sought to continue the proceedings before the Deputy Commissioner, claiming nothing in their own right but only the benefits accruing to their mother for the period between the worker's death and her own death. That prayer was rejected, the Commissioner holding that the dependent's claim, being then unadjudicated, abated at her death. From that decision the heirs now appeal.

The Act itself says nothing explicit about survival of a dependent's claim. Nor is there any square holding which resolves the question under the facts presented here. The two most recent decisions touching on the question seem to point in opposite directions, but neither really governs our case. Compare Union Stevedoring Co. v. Willard, 3 Cir., 209 F.2d 198,¹ with Cyr v. Reiss Steamship Co., 6 Cir., 229 F.2d 849.² In the absence of controlling mandate, resolution of the question must rest on a broader base.

A consideration of the central purpose of the Longshoremen's Act in providing death benefits suggests the solution. The scheme of the Act is that such benefits are limited to actual dependents of the worker and normally continue for the whole period of dependency. Thus, compensation is paid to the survivor only because he needs it and only so long as that need continues. It follows, of course, that benefits stop accruing with the dependent's death. But, until that time, his needs are just as real whether or not a formal award has been entered. The need arises from the moment support from the longshoreman ceases. So does entitlement to compensation. If payments are not immediately forthcoming, the dependent must presumably turn to other relatives or to the bank. Whatever debts, legal or moral, are thus created would normally be repaid by the dependent out of the accrued benefits distributed to him on the granting of an award. Surely the mere accident that adjudication is delayed beyond his death should not foreclose that repayment.

Nothing opposes this result. It is true that the maritime law, like the common law, does not...